And at the other end of the spectrum, is Wernher Von Braun. Too good at his job to be fired, and far too busy to stand trial for war crimes.

I wasn't aware that he had committed war crimes?

He used slave labour for the V-2 rocket program and oversaw the beatings and torture of those "workers" suspected of sabotage.

I also can't find reference to it, but I'm pretty sure being a member of the SS was also considered a war crime after WW2, albeit of a lesser nature than the crimes of waging aggressive war and genocide.

And at the other end of the spectrum, is Wernher Von Braun. Too good at his job to be fired, and far too busy to stand trial for war crimes.

I wasn't aware that he had committed war crimes?

He used slave labour for the V-2 rocket program and oversaw the beatings and torture of those "workers" suspected of sabotage.

I also can't find reference to it, but I'm pretty sure being a member of the SS was also considered a war crime after WW2, albeit of a lesser nature than the crimes of waging aggressive war and genocide.

"The Tribunal finds that knowledge of these criminal activities was sufficiently general to justify declaring that the SS was a criminal organisation to the extent hereinafter described. It does appear that an attempt was made to keep secret some phases of its activities, but its criminal programmes were so widespread, and involved slaughter on such a gigantic scale, that its criminal activities must have been widely known. It must be recognised, moreover, that the criminal activities of the SS followed quite logically from the principles on which it was organised."

"The Tribunal finds that knowledge of these criminal activities was sufficiently general to justify declaring that the SS was a criminal organisation to the extent hereinafter described. It does appear that an attempt was made to keep secret some phases of its activities, but its criminal programmes were so widespread, and involved slaughter on such a gigantic scale, that its criminal activities must have been widely known. It must be recognised, moreover, that the criminal activities of the SS followed quite logically from the principles on which it was organised."

II. The following are named as groups or organizations (since dissolved) which should be declared criminal by reason of their aims and the means used for the accomplishment thereof and in connection with the conviction of such of the named defendants as were members thereof: DIE REICHSREGIERUNG (REICH CABINET); DAS KORPS DER POLITISCHEN LEITER DER NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHEN DEUTSCHEN ARBEITERPARTEI (LEADERSHIP CORPS OF THE NAZI PARTY); DIE SCHUTZSTAFFELN DER NATIONALSOZIALISTISCHEN DEUTSCHEN ARBEITERPARTEI (commonly known as the "SS") and including DER SICHERHEITSDIENST (commonly known as the "SD"); DIE GEHEIME STAATSPOLIZEI (SECRET STATE POLICE, commonly known as the "GESTAPO"); DIE STURMABTEILUNGEN DER NSDAP (commonly known as the "SA"); and the GENERAL STAFF of the HIGH COMMAND of the GERMAN ARMED FORCES.

I, for one, don’t doubt for a second those rascally SS boys at Peenemünde only insisted Wernher von Braun join their ranks because they needed one more to justify building an officers’ club. And, I’m sure the SS only promoted him to the rank of Sturmbannführer (Major) because he led them in singing the best drinking songs.

And, who hasn’t utilized slave labor to build their secret weapons development facilities? I mean, who would trust those lazy, over-priced, trade union guys to do that kind of skilled construction work?

Well, the slave labor bit was after Peenemunde, when the majority of the research was relocated to Austria. Slave labor from Mauthausen-Gusen was used to create the second installation. Peenemunde itself was built by Luftwaffe engineers.

When Von Braun went to Mittelwerk plant to select "workers" based on their education, he said:

Quote from: wikipedia

"It is hellish. My spontaneous reaction was to talk to one of the SS guards, only to be told with unmistakable harshness that I should mind my own business, or find myself in the same striped fatigues! ... I realized that any attempt of reasoning on humane grounds would be utterly futile."

There is absolutely no doubt that he knew by 1944 what was happening to the Jews, but by then nobody could speak up without being made an object lesson for the others.

Quote

When asked if von Braun could have protested against the brutal treatment of the slave laborers, von Braun team member Konrad Dannenberg (a member of the Nazi party since 1932) told The Huntsville Times, "If he had done it, in my opinion, he would have been shot on the spot."

He was in fact arrested by the gestapo at one point for his bad attitude.

So if Werner Von Braun was guilty of anything, it was cowardice. He does not appear to have himself been a monster.

Logged

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

And at the other end of the spectrum, is Wernher Von Braun. Too good at his job to be fired, and far too busy to stand trial for war crimes.

I wasn't aware that he had committed war crimes?

He used slave labour for the V-2 rocket program and oversaw the beatings and torture of those "workers" suspected of sabotage.

I also can't find reference to it, but I'm pretty sure being a member of the SS was also considered a war crime after WW2, albeit of a lesser nature than the crimes of waging aggressive war and genocide.

The beatings and torture supervision was never proven. The reference states:

Quote

Some prisoners claim von Braun engaged in brutal treatment or approved of it. Guy Morand, a French resistance fighter who was a prisoner in Dora, testified in 1995 that after an apparent sabotage attempt, von Braun ordered a prisoner to be flogged,[44] while Robert Cazabonne, another French prisoner, claimed von Braun stood by as prisoners were hanged by chains suspended by cranes.[44]:123–124 However, these accounts may have been a case of mistaken identity.[45] Former Buchenwald inmate Adam Cabala claims that von Braun went to the concentration camp to pick slave laborers: "[...] also the German scientists led by Prof. Wernher von Braun were aware of everything daily. As they went along the corridors, they saw the exhaustion of the inmates, their arduous work and their pain. Not one single time did Prof. Wernher von Braun protest against this cruelty and bestiality during his frequent stays at Dora. Even the aspect of corpses did not touch him: On a small area near the ambulance shed, inmates tortured to death by slave labor and the terror of the overseers were piling up daily. But, Prof. Wernher von Braun passed them so close that he was almost touching the corpses".[46]

Don't you guys get me wrong...I don't have much sympathy for Nazis or those who work for them. Von Braun was guilty of "working for monsters to advance his pet project", and "Lacking the moral courage to speak out or otherwise hinder the ongoing crimes", as opposed to "massacring slavs on the Eastern front" or "herding Jews into cattle cars."

Logged

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

But, Brother Mythos, I am glad that my thread about not shooting a man for his first mistake has turned into yet another (at least sarcastic) inference that I am somehow a fucking Nazi sympathizer.

I had this stupid hope that things had turned around here.

Fuck this shit.

Logged

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

And at the other end of the spectrum, is Wernher Von Braun. Too good at his job to be fired, and far too busy to stand trial for war crimes.

I wasn't aware that he had committed war crimes?

He used slave labour for the V-2 rocket program and oversaw the beatings and torture of those "workers" suspected of sabotage.

I also can't find reference to it, but I'm pretty sure being a member of the SS was also considered a war crime after WW2, albeit of a lesser nature than the crimes of waging aggressive war and genocide.

The beatings and torture supervision was never proven. The reference states:

Quote

Some prisoners claim von Braun engaged in brutal treatment or approved of it. Guy Morand, a French resistance fighter who was a prisoner in Dora, testified in 1995 that after an apparent sabotage attempt, von Braun ordered a prisoner to be flogged,[44] while Robert Cazabonne, another French prisoner, claimed von Braun stood by as prisoners were hanged by chains suspended by cranes.[44]:123–124 However, these accounts may have been a case of mistaken identity.[45] Former Buchenwald inmate Adam Cabala claims that von Braun went to the concentration camp to pick slave laborers: "[...] also the German scientists led by Prof. Wernher von Braun were aware of everything daily. As they went along the corridors, they saw the exhaustion of the inmates, their arduous work and their pain. Not one single time did Prof. Wernher von Braun protest against this cruelty and bestiality during his frequent stays at Dora. Even the aspect of corpses did not touch him: On a small area near the ambulance shed, inmates tortured to death by slave labor and the terror of the overseers were piling up daily. But, Prof. Wernher von Braun passed them so close that he was almost touching the corpses".[46]

Don't you guys get me wrong...I don't have much sympathy for Nazis or those who work for them. Von Braun was guilty of "working for monsters to advance his pet project", and "Lacking the moral courage to speak out or otherwise hinder the ongoing crimes", as opposed to "massacring slavs on the Eastern front" or "herding Jews into cattle cars."

I'll admit I was going off memory with that one. Still, I will note that I don't exactly trust that we have all the records for people who were considered of critical interest by the intelligence and defence services after the war - entire armed groups had their histories re-written by OSS personnel so that when the CIA formed, they had a relatively "clean slate" for when they were hired on. Belarussian and Ukrainian anti-Communists who happened to be raging Nazis were recast as "democratic freedom fighters", for example.

But that's an argument from lack of evidence, which isn't the same as proof, so I concede the point.

But, Brother Mythos, I am glad that my thread about not shooting a man for his first mistake has turned into yet another (at least sarcastic) inference that I am somehow a fucking Nazi sympathizer.

I had this stupid hope that things had turned around here.

Fuck this shit.

My sarcasm was not intended to be a personal insult. Quite frankly, in light of the insults you so freely throw around, I’m more than a little surprised to find you chose to be personally insulted by my post.

In any case, you might find the following to be of interest:

“A History of the Dora Camp: The Story of the Nazi Slave Labor Camp that Secretly Manufactured V-2 Rockets”

This article, a book review, can be found on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website.

From the article (Bold type mine): “André Sellier’s History of the Dora Camp is the definitive and valuable study of the slave labor camp in which thousands were worked to death to produce V2 rocket missiles under the technical supervision of the SS member Wernher von Braun. The book is a valuable contribution to our awareness of the depravity of the Nazi regime and its plans for the utter exploitation of all peoples under its control.”

But, Brother Mythos, I am glad that my thread about not shooting a man for his first mistake has turned into yet another (at least sarcastic) inference that I am somehow a fucking Nazi sympathizer.

I had this stupid hope that things had turned around here.

Fuck this shit.

My sarcasm was not intended to be a personal insult. Quite frankly, in light of the insults you so freely throw around, I’m more than a little surprised to find you chose to be personally insulted by my post.

In any case, you might find the following to be of interest:

“A History of the Dora Camp: The Story of the Nazi Slave Labor Camp that Secretly Manufactured V-2 Rockets”

This article, a book review, can be found on the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum website.

From the article (Bold type mine): “André Sellier’s History of the Dora Camp is the definitive and valuable study of the slave labor camp in which thousands were worked to death to produce V2 rocket missiles under the technical supervision of the SS member Wernher von Braun. The book is a valuable contribution to our awareness of the depravity of the Nazi regime and its plans for the utter exploitation of all peoples under its control.”

You get to be right. I don't care. YOU WIN THE ARGUMENT! Go be right at someone else.

Logged

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."- TGRR, raising the bar at work.

My point wasn't that he was a monster, it's that the debate could never happen, he was offered amnesty as part of operation paperclip, his work was literally important to the exclusion of all else.

Yeah, that's mostly on account of we had a few monsters of our own. Curtis LeMay comes to mind.

Quote

Inexperience good men get sacrificed when projects go wrong, questionable men never get questioned when they are vital to a project. I've seen both happen in the last place I worked

Actually, in this set of circumstances, the inexperienced safety manager would have thrown anyone under the bus, regardless of how vital that person was, simply because no other option looked safe.

Logged

" It's just that Depeche Mode were a bunch of optimistic loveburgers."- TGRR, shaming himself forever, 7/8/2017

"Billy, when I say that ethics is our number one priority and safety is also our number one priority, you should take that to mean exactly what I said. Also quality. That's our number one priority as well. Don't look at me that way, you're in the corporate world now and this is how it works."- TGRR, raising the bar at work.